#10 | Rainbow Chan

Rainbow Chan is an interdisciplinary artist working across music, performance, painting and installation. Her practice explores (mis)translation, diasporic experiences, globalisation’s effect on modern Chinese society, and deeply personal tales of love and loss. More recently, she has been exploring women’s oral history, folk songs and language with a focus on her ancestral ties to Weitou people, the first settlers of Hong Kong.

In-conversation with Rainbow Chan available via Apple Podcasts here or Vimeo below.

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EXHIBITION INFO

CHUN YIN RAINBOW CHAN
Vegetable Lament菜文
2022
Habotai silk, silk dye, freshwater pearls, 花带 patterned braids, linocut print, polyamide thread, cotton, stereo audio loop (2:30 minutes)
Dimensions variable

One of Us
2022
涼帽Waitau farming hat, 花带 patterned braid, polyamide thread
Dimensions variable

哭嫁 or ‘bridal laments’ refer to a marital mourning ritual of the 圍頭 (Waitau/Weitou) people, the first settlers of Hong Kong. To Waitau women, arranged marriages signified a kind of death. Upon marriage, a bride’s ties to home were severed and she would remain an outsider to the groom’s family. The bride-to-be would perform a lament cycle which involved singing and weeping in front of loved ones for three days.

Chan has Waitau ancestry through her mother who never learnt the laments as the oral tradition faded in the 1960s. With the help of her mother as translator, Chan has relearned these traditional songs from elderly Waitau women in Hong Kong’s New Territories over the last five years.

In Vegetable Lament菜文, Chan takes a lament that uses vegetable metaphors to describe the bride’s pain. The installation comprises silk painting, back-strap loom weaving and sound. Chan transcribes the lyrics onto silk through brushwork, calligraphy and embroidery. Sonically, Chan turns the lament into a pop song using autotune and digital manipulation. Through these imperfect acts of translation, Vegetable Lament菜文 explores themes of loss, rebirth and matrilineal knowledge. By reimagining the lament in a contemporary manner, Chan illuminates the diasporic psyche of connection/disconnection. Her research and practice keeps the dying oral tradition of bridal laments significant to a modern world.

Vegetable Lament菜文 is accompanied by second work, titled One of Us. Chan reframes the humble Waitau woman’s farming hat into a symbol of resilience and hope. Through the stitched words which is syntaxically reversed, Chan subverts the idea of linearity and order, forcing the audience to re-read the sentence a few times over until meaning emerges. The hat was gifted to Chan by Waitau elders during their first meeting in 2017. The artist wishes to acknowledge that the patterned braid or花带 was handmade by Granny Leung Siu-Ha.

chunyinrainbowchan.com
@chunyinrainbowchan

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Chun Yin Rainbow Chan 陳雋然 is a Sydney-based artist working across music, performance, painting and installation. Her practice explores (mis)translation, diasporic experiences and deeply personal tales of love and loss. In 2022, she was recognised in the 40 Under 40: Most Influential Asian-Australians Award for her contributions to arts and culture, and she won Artist of the Year in the FBi SMAC Awards. Chan has exhibited at Firstdraft, Sydney; Liquid Architecture, Melbourne; 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney; Gallery Lane Cove, Sydney; Granville Centre Art Gallery, Sydney; and I-Project Space, Beijing. Chan has performed at Sydney Opera House; Vivid Festival, Sydney; MONA FOMA, Hobart; QAGOMA, Brisbane; Melbourne Music Week; Iceland Airwaves, Reykjavík; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung; and Tai Kwun, Hong Kong. She was a finalist in the 2022 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship, presented by Artspace, Create NSW and National Art School. Songs From a Walled Village, her documentary for ABC Radio National, was a finalist in the 2021 Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Awards. Chan teaches in Contemporary Music at Sydney Conservatorium of Music and is on the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art Board. Her pop music record Stanley was released on UK label Eastern Margins in 2021.